Founder & Product Designer · Sydney
Jason Hindley
I design and build humane software, end to end. Two apps so far, both on the App Store.
I've designed, built and shipped two iPhone apps on my own: Tether, a social network without the algorithm, and Marginalia, a reading journal. Every screen, string and release is mine, and both start from one belief: humane design should be the norm in consumer apps, not the exception.
01 · Tether
A social network you can finish.
Founder · Product, design and iOS · Blackbird Giants, Cohort 9
Social platforms have become a wasteland of patterns built to keep you scrolling. Tether is built so time on it turns into time together.
Newest first, nothing ranked
You see what your friends post, in the order they post it. Nothing is boosted, recommended or reordered to hold your attention.
A feed with an end
Friends' posts arrive once a day. Reach the end and Tether says so plainly, and you're done until tomorrow.
Built around plans
Events, RSVPs and group chats sit at the centre of the app. Keen on something with no date yet? It's a plan, kept at the top until it has one.
Paste a link, get an event
Paste a link from Eventbrite, Humanitix, Meetup or even an Instagram post, and Tether fills in the name, date, place and photo. The map uses Apple Maps' own venue markers.
Messages, minus the noise
Talk to friends without being pulled back in. Notifications group by conversation and stay quiet in a chat you already have open. Swipe to reply, send a voice note, and hide your online status whenever you like.
02 · Marginalia
A reading journal that helps you remember.
Designer & Builder · iPhone · Works without an account
Marginalia keeps track of the books you're reading, want to read and have finished. You can save the sentences that stand out, with a note in your own words, and every so often it asks you about what you've read, so more of it stays with you. Each screen takes its colours from the cover of the book you're looking at.
The best advertising is the unsolicited testimonial of the satisfied customer.
Make something worth telling a friend about.
Sixteen releases since mid-August.
I design both apps, build them and write their release notes. Tether launched in February and has shipped about once a week since August. Marginalia launched on 1 October and is already on its seventh release.
Tether
Marginalia
- Marginalia 0.6.017 Oct
Import from Goodreads, and Recall, where Claude checks in on what you've read.
- Marginalia 0.5.015 Oct
Claude answers questions about a book on any iPhone, and books and highlights share as Stories.
- Marginalia 0.4.012 Oct
Ready for iPhone Duo, with text up to twice the size and gentler motion.
- Marginalia 0.3.011 Oct
Ask about any book, typed or by voice, without spoilers past your page.
- Tether 1.610 Oct
Report comments, profiles and events, and save camera photos to your library.
Two apps, annotated.
The decisions behind each screen. Things you probably wouldn't notice unless they were explicitly pointed out.
- 1
Choose which notifications you get. Tapping one takes you straight to the post, request or reply.
- 2
Up to ten photos and short clips in a post, kept in the order you arranged them.
- 3
Likes and comments arrive as they happen, not every five minutes.
- 4
Icons only: the labels came off the tab bar for a cleaner look.
- 1
A map of where and when every upcoming event is happening.
- 2
Keen but no date yet? It's a plan, kept at the top until RSVPs open.
- 3
Anything you're going to or hosting lands in your calendar by itself.
- 4
The year's events become a wall of photos, grouped by year as they get older.
- 1
Every event has its own group chat. Leave the event and you leave the chat.
- 2
The host can reposition the cover rather than crop it, and keep it out of the gallery.
- 3
Paste a venue or ticket link, and Tether fills in the name, date, place and photo.
- 4
The map shows the same venue markers as Apple Maps.
- 1
The pile's length in time, from your pace: your median reading day, times how often you read.
- 2
One number sets both how far the covers overlap and where a flick can stop, so it never stops between two.
- 3
The colour is the cover itself, shrunk to 20 by 20 and bloomed out.
- 4
Every line of the caption keeps its height, so a long title never moves the covers.
- 1
Questions about the book stop at your page: nothing past it, unless you say so.
- 2
Update becomes Undo for six seconds after the dial moves.
- 3
A page a notch. It saves once, when the dial comes to rest.
- 4
The reading log keeps one entry a day, however often you update.
- 1
The spoiler rule, from your shelf and page. Finished, so anything goes.
- 2
Suggested questions fit the kind of book, and how far into it you are.
- 3
Answered on the iPhone by Apple's model, or by Claude once you've agreed.
- 4
Or talk: it listens, asks after a pause, and reads the answer out.
Zero to one on my own. Better as a team.
I love working across product, UI and UX, brand and copy. I've taken two apps from a blank page to the App Store by myself. Before that, I spent years inside product teams at SafetyCulture and Beem, and led training on Apple's Genius Bar. I know how to share the work: write things down, take feedback well, and help the people around me do their best work.
Product
Deciding what a product is for, and what to leave out. Tether has no ranking and no endless feed on purpose; Marginalia needs no account until you want one.
UI and UX
Type, colour and motion, and the small physical details: a dial that moves a page a notch, colour drawn from a book's own cover.
Brand
Each app has its own look and voice, carried from the icon through the App Store page, the share cards and the website.
Copy
Years as a technical writer mean the words get the same care as the pixels: interface copy, release notes, and docs a whole team can work from.
From the Genius Bar to the App Store.
Years working alongside product teams taught me how good software gets made. AI and coding harnesses let me start making it myself.
- TetherBlackbird Giants, Cohort 9Founder. Product, design and iOS, from the first sketch to the App Store.2025–now
- MarginaliaIndependentDesigner and builder of a reading journal for iPhone.2026–now
- BeemFormerly part of Australian Payments PlusTechnical Writer, alongside the product team.2023
- SafetyCultureNow MittiSupport Analyst, then Technical Writer alongside the product team.2020–2023
- AppleGenius BarTechnical Specialist, then Genius and Training Lead.2014–2020
Let's make something wonderful.
I'm open to Product Designer and Design Engineer roles at design-led, mission-driven companies. I'm based in Sydney, and happy to work from: